2018 World Cup offers Chechnya opportunity to play Middle Eastern politics
By James M. Dorsey
When strongman Ramzan Kadyrov last month opened The Local, a United Arab Emirates-funded luxury hotel in the Chechen capital of Grozny and prepared to receive Egypt’s World Cup qualifying national team as its first guests, he was cashing in on more than the Russian region’s Muslim identity.
Eager to forge close ties to Middle Eastern na…